A Little Advance

I once dated a girl who took me home for Christmas. This was when my hair was in long dreadlocks and I was working nights at 7-Eleven. The job wasn't as bad as you might think. I read magazines all night, and everything was free. The surveillance cameras didn't work. My boss was too cheap to fix them.

I'd been living like that, in a holding pattern, for about two years. During the day I worked on my sculpture, which I'd long ago begun to hate. It was a collection of rusty car parts piled together in the shape of a cow. Once I'd had a concept of what it meant, but now it was just a shit-heap in the corner, a monument to failure. My apartment was a small, rancid studio behind Herefordshire Preparatory School, and some days I'd stand at the window and watch them, the boys and girls with so much love around them, and it would sicken me to tears. Self-pity, I'd found, was like whiskey: You need more and more and then eventually it does nothing for you. I tried to stay optimistic. I'd wave down at the little people, and once one of them waved back.

And then I met Carol. She was tall and pale, swan-like, with a cloud of fine white hair. She smelled like lemon and soap and baby powder. It was what I imagined angels must smell like.

Carol had a white-knuckle appetite for sex. She loved to touch my dick. She was like a little girl with a pet hamster. I remember reading about people who fasted for weeks, then had shimmering, wondrous visions. Sex with Carol was like that. It was like burrowing into the part of my brain that holds smells and colors. It was like jumping off a waterfall.

She asked me home for Christmas after we'd been dating for a month. "Question," she said. She placed a single finger on my chest. "What are you doing tomorrow?"

It was Christmas Eve and we were holed up in my dingy room, under the covers, naked. Carol's skin was smooth and slightly moist.

"Working."

"Call in sick. I told my mom I was bringing you home for Christmas. Switch with someone."

The year before, I had worked a double shift on Christmas day. I'd sat behind the counter with a stupid Santa hat on my head and read Four Wheeler Magazine and once in a while sold a gallon of milk. At about midnight a young Chaldean kid walked up to the counter and said "Hey, Santa," and stuck a small pistol out through the fly of his baggy jeans. I couldn't move, and then I realized that the gun was plastic, a toy, and suddenly this joke was terrifically funny, until I saw that his friend had the real gun pointed at my head.

I asked her, "Are you serious? Because I'll come if you're serious."

She seemed to think about it for a second, "Yeah, I'm serious. But don't get your hopes up. You haven't met my family."

"Don't talk to me about families. I could tell you a few stories about families, believe me." Carol shook her head. "We're not dysfunctional or anything. That's the funny part: We're completely normal."

I climbed out of bed and pulled on a newish pair of jeans. "Let's go to the store. I'll talk to Rahman."

Rahman hated giving time off. When I came into the store he had the Slurpee machine pulled apart and was working on it with a Crescent wrench. After I told him my story he pulled a rag from his back pocket and wiped his hands carefully, and said, "No."

"My mom's cooking this goose," I explained. "I'll bring you some pumpkin pie. I promise."

He shook his head. "No. OK? The answer to your question is no."

"Don't be such a fucking Grinch. Come on."

He crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head. "Rahman," I said, "it's Christmas." But Rahman was Muslim. He didn't care. He turned back to the Slurpee machine and gave it a long, stingy stare.

"All right, Rahman. You win. Merry Christmas." I put my name tag on the counter and kicked the door open and walked out into the frozen parking lot like a champion.

•

Carol picked me up at seven, and after we cleared the city limits she explained what she wanted me to do. "Just be yourself," she said. She was wearing a tight black T-shirt that said Bite me. "These people are so uptight, it's like they're about to explode. You should hear the way my grandpa tells my mom he loves her. I love you! Like he's barking at her." Her lips curled into a tight grin. "And then there's my brother--I can't wait for him to see your hair. God! He's going to have a conniption."

"I don't know," I said. "I have this tendency to piss people off when I'm being myself. I can't help it."

"So what if you do? Don't worry about it. It'd be good for them."

I shook my head. "I just have bad luck with Christmas."

She glanced over at me. "Jesus Christ, Joel. Relax. Please?"

Carol talked tough even though she clearly wasn't. She had a certain frailness. With her leather Harley jacket and flannel shirt and lacy fuck-me-now lingerie, she wore a gold charm bracelet: little hearts and seahorses. She worried about lactose and saturated fat, and at night she ground her teeth; it sounded like she was chewing marbles.

But I didn't mind that. Carol had the kind of beauty that wasn't just in her face, but in her hands and shoulders and neck, her voice. She was just 19. I was 24 with no job, no car and a mouthful of smoky yellow teeth. It was hard to see why she was attracted to me at all. But she honestly believed I was an artist, and in artists a degree of ugliness can be considered sexy.

I'd known Carol only a month but already I'd begun to think about her at unexpected times. Staring at the toaster in the morning, or copping a smoke in the back room at work, I'd find myself thinking about her laugh or her graceful fingers or her shiny red fingernails. It was embarrassing how much I thought about her. I hadn't had a girlfriend in over a year and knew I was very lucky. Every time the phone rang I felt a tiny wrinkle of fear; I expected it to be Carol telling me how sorry she was, that things just weren't working out. You're really a great guy, Joel. I'd heard this several times before and it was basically the same every time. I'm still going to call you, OK? Some mornings she'd show up at my apartment at nine and hurry to class three hours later, and that evening, standing at the refrigerator in my underwear, I couldn't be sure if she'd really been there, or if I'd dreamed her.

•

Carol's house was enormous. It looked like a gigantic gingerbread house, with a layer of snow spread like frosting over the roof and shutters and chimney. There was a man standing on(continued on page 167)a little advance(continued from page 96) the roof when we arrived. He was holding a snow shovel and wearing a plaid woolly hat, the kind with earflaps. His breath puffed out in thin white clouds. As we drove up the long driveway, he waved at us.

"That's my brother, Ronald," Carol said, waving back. "I have no idea what the fuck he's doing up there."

"You've got to be kidding me," I said. "You're loaded."

"No." She killed the engine. "My dad was loaded, and now I guess my mom is, but I'm not. Don't give me shit about it, OK?"

"I just can't fucking believe it."

Inside, I stood in the middle of the family room and stared up at the cathedral ceiling. I'd never been in a place like this. I felt giddy. It was the kind of house I'd seen in House Beautiful. The paintings, the cut flowers, the softly ticking clock: The room had an understated grace, signaling the presence of serious money. Even the air seemed thicker and warmer, more nourishing.

"Cut it out," Carol said. "Haven't you ever seen a skylight before?"

"I love all this."

"What?"

I gestured broadly.

"Well, you get used to it. Believe me."

I gave her a dubious look. "It would take me a long time to get used to this."

After a minute she called to me from the kitchen. "Do you want some lunch? There's a ton of food here."

For the entire ride over, I had been starving. But I wasn't hungry anymore. I circled the room, running my fingers over the smooth, polished furniture. Warm sunlight trickled in through the high windows. I flopped down on the sofa and took off my jacket and put my feet up on the end table, and I closed my eyes. It felt so natural. I wanted the television, and the grandfather clock. I wanted the tall bookcases. I wanted everything.

•

Carol's brother looked like a shopping mall mannequin, with tiny rimless glasses and khaki pants and a plaid sweater, his hair swept back and shellacked in place. "You made it!" he said, slapping at his snowy pants legs. "I was starting to get worried."

We were in the kitchen eating lunch. There was prosciutto and melon and smoked salmon spread out on the counter. My plate was mounded over. Half a brioche was stuffed in my mouth. Carol's mother, Jeanne, had come downstairs soon after we'd arrived, and now she sat across the table sipping tonic water. She looked like a smaller version of Carol, but when she spoke her voice was breathy and slow, like a sigh; she seemed to recognize something fundamentally sad about the world. She was staring at my hair.

Ronald sat down at the table, plucked an olive off his sister's plate and examined it before popping it into his mouth. "You're probably wondering what I was doing on the roof."

Carol shrugged. "Not really."

"I was shoveling," he said. "I read this article yesterday that said a roof can collapse if there's more than 18 inches of snow on it." He took another olive from Carol's plate and grinned goofily. "I was saving our roof."

He was so earnest, like a boy in a Norman Rockwell painting. I had an urge to tousle his hair or give him a noogie, or just slap him.

"There's like six inches out there," Carol said.

Jeanne touched Carol lightly on the forearm. "Did I tell you your grandfather is coming today? Your aunt says he's been difficult lately, so we'll have to ... you know. Take it easy." She sipped her tonic water and smiled gently at her daughter, then at Ronald, then at me. I excused myself to get more soda.

In the kitchen, I pretended to rummage in the refrigerator, then I tiptoed into the dining room and then into what was probably the study. Someone had obviously been reading Interior Design. The Prairie School decor, with subtle Japanese accents, was exactly as I would have done it. Often as a kid, I had daydreamed about just such a house. I'd pictured myself tinkering with the movement of the grandfather clock, or sipping a mint julep on the patio, or tooling around on a John Deere riding mower on a hot August morning, bare chested, the front lawn a vast, open territory.

I snuck back into the kitchen. I felt wonderful. I'd always viewed my poverty as somewhat noble, but as I stood in front of Carol's packed refrigerator, I knew I'd been wrong. There is nothing noble about wanting. Nobility comes from having plenty but taking only what you need, and not overindulging. There is no virtue without temptation. Any idiot knows that.

I poured myself a glass of Coke, then on second thought cracked open a cold Heineken.

"You know," Ronald said when I returned, "being up on the roof reminded me of a story I heard about this fireman in Muskegon." He leaned over the table. "This fireman went out one cold night on a call to a trailer home. Apparently those houses are pretty flimsy, because the entire roof had collapsed, and all that was left was a shell, really, four walls. So the fireman went searching for the family, and he found them in their beat-up old pickup, trying to keep warm. A middle-aged man and his two young daughters. And you know what they were doing?"

Carol's arms were crossed over her Bite Me T-shirt. "Is this one of your little stories?" she asked. "Because we just got here, Ronald. We're really not in the mood right now."

Ronald smiled patiently at me. "You know what they were doing?"

Carol sighed loudly. "Playing three-handed bridge. Smoking crack. We don't care, Ronald."

"Please, Ronald, tell us what they were doing," Jeanne said. "I'd like to know."

"They were singing Christmas carols. They were sitting in the truck singing Away in a Manger. Isn't that something? It struck me as very hopeful. Beautiful, in a way." He took another olive and chewed it meditatively. "Just out of curiosity, Joel, are you at all religious?"

"Oh, God. For Christ's sake, Ronald." Carol closed her eyes and exhaled. "Please just ignore him, Joel. He gets a little overexcited about Christmas."

"I wish you could have a better attitude," Ronald said. "That's really all I'm asking."

"Ronald," Jeanne said. "Why don't we just leave it alone, OK?" Her smile faded into a tired grin, the memory of a smile. She was tapping her index finger against her empty glass.

"Give me a break, Ronald," Carol said. "You used to hate all this as much as I do." She turned to me. "Ronald used to make himself vomit so he wouldn't have to go to our Aunt Helen's house. He'd eat something disgusting, rotten hamburger or old yogurt or something, and then he'd do jumping jacks in his bedroom until he puked. Every time. Then he would climb into bed and whimper until my mom found him. He'd be like, My tummy-----"

"OK, Carol," Ronald said, reddening. "OK. I admit that I used to dislike spending Christmas with them. But people change. They grow up, for one thing."

"Oh, fuck you," Carol said.

Ronald smiled and picked up the newspaper. He opened the business section with a righteous snap.

"Fuck you," Carol said again.

•

Carol refused to give me a tour of the house, and instead took me up to her bedroom. It was pink and yellow, with a border of dancing bears. It was the room of a 12-year-old. "Do you have any of your little-girl clothes?" I asked her.

"You wish. God, I hate being home. I truly despise it." She rummaged in her bag for a joint, then lit it up and sucked the first quarter-inch off. She waited a second, then hit it again. She was something of a hog when it came to weed.

"Pass it," I said.

"I should have warned you about my brother. He's been 'saved.'"

"Isn't he kind of young for that?"

"It happened a couple of years ago, when he was a freshman. My mother's still a little freaked out. She's sort of happy about it and sort of not happy at all."

"My mom had a boyfriend like that. He talked Jesus to us all the time. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. About everything." I shrugged. "She dumped him."

"It's annoying," Carol said, shaking her head. "He used to be this cool guy, and now he's just this ... guy. And he's constantly forgiving me, even for things I don't think are wrong. It's his way of hurting me." She took the roach from me and smoked it down to nothing. "Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

"A sister, sort of. She moved to Alaska when I was six."

"Well, you're not missing a whole lot." She got up and closed her bedroom door. "What I love about coming home is that it makes me appreciate strangers more. You know? People you know absolutely nothing about?"

I turned to answer her, but she placed her index finger against her lips and said, "Shhh." She pulled off her T-shirt and jeans in two careless motions. She wasn't wearing anything else. Carol climbed onto the bed, looking straight at me. "I guess I'm in the Christmas spirit," she whispered. "The spirit of giving, and all that."

"What if someone comes in?"

But that didn't seem to bother her too much. She touched me with her beautiful fingers, and there was nothing I could do. In a few seconds we were underneath her Raggedy Ann comforter. She was smooth and strong, an eel, all muscle. The sweat rolled down my face and dripped from my chin into the hollow of her neck. "Come on," she whispered, yanking at my dreadlocks like they were reins. "Come on."

And then there was a knock on her bedroom door. Rap rap rap. Polite but insistent. I hovered above her, frozen.

Carol whispered, "Don't worry about it." She gripped my ass. "Keep yourself a little quieter, is what that means."

It took me a little while to get convinced, but when I did I gave her everything I had.

Later, while Carol was brushing her teeth, I started thinking about Christmas in my mother's house. The wreaths were always hung crooked and stank of mothballs. The bows were crumpled. And the nativity scene was a cheap plastic set, a Kmart special. There were three sad sheep with their legs broken off, and the little Jesus had a cigarette burn on his belly. Only the wise men were unmolested. They stood together, gazing down in horror.

I hated Christmas morning. My mother wrapped everything, in a pathetic attempt to make the Christmas haul look bigger. It only made things worse. While I was tearing open sweatsocks and bottles of mouthwash, I knew that other boys were unwrapping the good toys, the ones that needed batteries. On Christmas night I'd lie awake, weepy and frustrated. I wanted to chisel every Atari cartridge and Can Am car and Lazer Tag pistol on the planet into thumbnail-sized pieces.

Carol's house was nothing like my mother's house. People would arrive soon from distant parts, and even if they hated one another they'd shake hands and swap presents and carry on like long-lost friends. They wouldn't get drunk on Night Train Express and climb onto the dinner table, shrieking for an ex-husband. No bathroom windows would end up broken. It was as if you could buy civility like you could buy cigarettes, or oatmeal.

I wanted to explain this to Carol, but when I turned to her she was sitting on the edge of the bed, worrying a cracked toenail. Her knees were pulled up against her chest and her entire body was tucked in, as though she were preparing to receive a great blow. A stray strand of hair had fallen loose and curled underneath her powdered chin. My God. She was 19 years old, and beautiful. And rich.

After a while she noticed me staring and asked, "What?" and I reached over and brushed the hair back from her face.

"Nothing."

•

When we went downstairs Jeanne looked at Carol and arched her eyebrows and said, "Honey? They'll be here soon."

Carol picked up an envelope off the table and opened it. "Is this my Christmas present?"

Jeanne was wearing a velvety black dress and diamond earrings, and she smelled like wilted roses: a lonely, expensive smell. She smiled at me, then took her daughter's arm and whispered something in her ear. She was shorter than Carol and had to go up on tiptoe. It was an oddly touching sight. Carol said, "What?" Her mother smiled at me and said, "Excuse us for just a minute," and led Carol into the kitchen. After a little while Jeanne came out of the kitchen and headed upstairs, and Carol followed, rolling her eyes.

In the family room, the mantel was covered with pictures of Carol and Ronald: eating candy apples at some cider mill, making snow angels on the front lawn. One picture showed Carol and Ronald with a tall, bearded man who must have been their father. The children were sitting on a wooden porch-swing and the bearded man was hugging them both from behind, and all of them were frozen in open-mouthed laughter. Then I saw Carol's Christmas envelope lying on the end table. I peeked inside: There was a card and a check for $2000. A spasm shot through my bladder. I dropped the envelope, and then Ronald came in and plopped down on the sofa and gave me a queer, nervous smile.

"Great tree," I said.

"It is, isn't it?"

"We used to have a fake one," I said.

"Half the branches were missing. The thing looked like a cactus."

"We've always had real trees. My father used to cut them down a few miles from here, on a tree farm. Gorgeous full trees. Douglas firs and Scotch pines, mostly, but we'd get the occasional blue spruce."

"Well," I said. "Maybe I'll go see what Carol's up to." The sight of the $2000 check was freaking me out.

"Hey, Joel," Ronald said, "I'd like to apologize for this morning. For asking you if you're religious, and everything. Sometimes I go a little too far."

"Don't worry about it."

"You sure?"

"Sure. No big deal."

"OK. Good. Carol gets pretty annoyed when I talk about religion. She won't even listen to me, let alone come to church. You know what she calls me? A Bible-banger. I don't even know what that means." He sat forward on the sofa, staring into his hands. "I'm not trying to convert you, Joel. It's just something that's important to me."

"I can respect that," I said. "It's OK. Really."

There was something in me that felt sorry for Ronald. It was his face that did it, his milky, uncomplicated skin. It was a face that could never hide a lie, and this made me want to fuck with him just a little. "My problem was that I could never buy into that whole 'unconditional love' thing," I told him. "It always seemed kind of flaky."

Ronald looked at me. "Flaky?"

"Yeah. I mean, don't you ever feel guilty?"

"No. Well--about what?"

"Because He loves you and you didn't do anything for it."

Ronald's voice when he answered was slow and prissy. "It's unconditional, Joel. It means you don't have to do anything. It's like a gift."

"Yeah, but say I give you a gift for Christmas and tell you it's unconditional. I'm still expecting you to get me something. Of roughly equal value."

"Joel," he said, but stopped. He looked confused. "It's not like that. I could give you something, and I wouldn't expect anything at all in return."

"Really?"

"Of course."

"What would you give me?"

Ronald took a breath, then exhaled slowly. A pink flush spread from his ears to the side of his neck. "What would you want?"

I named a figure that didn't seem too unreasonable.

•

A white Cadillac pulled into the driveway at four, and Carol said, "Showtime." She'd brushed her hair out and changed into a black velvet dress, like her mother's. She wore a strand of pearls and matching earrings, and she looked wholesome and beautiful, and I could not stop looking at her.

"Don't give me crap about this," she told me. "OK? I'm serious." She sniffed the shoulder of her dress. "Shit. I smell like weed."

Jeanne hurried into the room and turned the music louder and said, "They're here," and rushed to the front door. We heard the doorbell, then a collision of happy voices, feet stamping in the front hall, the closet door opening and closing. Carol was gnawing on her thumbnail. She went over to the stereo and turned the music even louder. Ave Maria was blasting. A car horn tooted, and another Cadillac turned into the driveway.

I said, "Your whole family is rich."

Her relatives began wandering into the family room. Her Uncle Joseph had a taut pink scar winding from his right earlobe down into his sweater, like a slash from a bottle fight, but everyone else looked tanned and vigorous. They looked like actors impersonating rich people. Carol hugged each of them, then slipped her arm around my waist. "Joel's an artist," she informed them. "He does abstract sculpture with old car parts." No one seemed to know what to do with that fact. One aunt laughed hysterically. She slapped Carol playfully on the elbow and said, "Really, Carol, my goodness," but when she saw that Carol wasn't laughing, she gave me a confused, terrified look.

Soon the family room was loud with laughter and clinking ice cubes and Karen Carpenter's bittersweet voice. I sat with Carol in the corner of the room, sipping champagne. Carol's aunts and uncles seemed to share the same laugh--a breezy, confident chuckle--and I admired and hated them for it. Jeanne was working the room with a platter of extra-large shrimp, and when she saw us she gave Carol a cartoon frown and whispered, "Come on, Carol. Introduce Joel to everybody. Mingle."

Carol ignored her. "My mother is afraid my aunts will think I'm rude or something. It's her biggest fear. Once Ronald got caught smashing car windshields with a golf club, and she didn't even punish him. She just made him promise never to tell anyone about it." She sipped her champagne. "The funny thing was, he told everyone."

I took Carol's empty glass, and in the kitchen I refilled it with champagne, drained it and filled it again. When I came back into the family room Carol was gone. She wasn't on the sofa. A band of sweat burst onto my forehead. I went back into the kitchen and drank another glass of champagne, then worked my way through the study and living room and foyer. No Carol.

I stood in the kitchen, drinking champagne. I wanted to go into the family room, but for some reason I couldn't get up the nerve to move. There was something powerful I couldn't explain, like gravity, grabbing at me. A group of Carol's teenage cousins were slouched in the corner, bored. I wanted to be one of those kids. I wanted their parents to laugh at my jokes and ask me what I thought about the PLO or derivatives trading. All the hours at the 7-Eleven, all the magazines I'd read: I was prepared to talk about anything.

Finally Jeanne appeared next to me, holding two glasses of champagne. She offered one glass to me. "Have you met everyone? Carol's not the best for making introductions."

I nodded. "I think I freaked out your father. With my hair."

Jeanne smiled. "It would take more than that to scare my father. Trust me." She sipped her champagne. "Have you seen my daughter lately? I can't seem to find her anywhere. She was supposed to help with the hors d'oeuvres."

"She was here a few minutes ago," I said testily, "and then she left."

"She's probably upstairs hiding from me. She does that sometimes." Jeanne touched her forehead distractedly. She seemed mildly drunk, and even drunk she radiated an aura of melancholy. It occurred to me that some of her sadness was probably caused by Carol; this made me feel vaguely guilty. "You know, Carol hasn't brought anyone home since she was a freshman in high school. Isn't that strange? You're the first one of Carol's friends I've met in a long time." Jeanne shook her head. "Anyway, I'm glad you could come, Joel."

"Me too."

She looked at me skeptically. "Are you having a good time?"

I nodded. "This is how I always pictured Christmas should be, when I was a kid. You know: the fireplace, the big tree. The music, even. This is basically it."

"Really?" Jeanne pursed her lips. "This is how our Christmas has always been, and it's starting to feel sort of hokey. I was thinking we'd try something new next year. A change."

"Don't change anything," I told her. "You shouldn't, I mean. This is perfect."

Jeanne laughed. "I like you, Joel. You're the most optimistic person in this room. I appreciate that." She reached toward me, and for a second I thought she was going to pinch my cheek. Instead she took one of my dreadlocks and rolled it between her thumb and forefinger. She smiled. "I've always wanted to do that."

For a few long moments I felt completely at ease. I wanted to stand on the sofa and belt out a toast: to Jeanne and Carol and Ronald, to Christmas, to everything. The tree was lit up with hundreds of tiny white lights, like stars. Someone, one of the uncles, threw his head back and laughed. His laughter filled the room and floated up to the ceiling. One of the young cousins dashed into the room and clung to his mother's leg, and she bent down and scooped him into her arms. The safety of that room! Suddenly it was easy to understand that Christmas is a religious holiday.

I put my champagne glass down. My hands were trembling; I felt high, buzzed, even though I wasn't. I told Jeanne, "I quit my job yesterday."

"You did?"

I nodded. "To come here today. I quit."

Jeanne was cheerfully confused. "You quit to come here? Why?"

Then Carol grabbed me by the sleeve and said, "Come on." I followed her upstairs to her bedroom. "Now?" I asked. "Are you serious?" She grabbed her toothbrush from the bathroom and stuffed it into her overnight bag. Then she opened the closet and pulled out my jacket and shoved it at me.

"What?" I said. "What is this?"

"We're leaving."

"Why?"

"We're just leaving." She zipped her overnight bag, then opened the closet again and yanked her jacket off its hanger.

"Hey," I said. "Hello?"

"OK. Fine. Ronald said you tried to extort money from him. He said you tricked him into promising you $900."

"What is this suppo----" I said, but then I remembered. "Oh, that. I was joking! I was just fucking around." I wanted to laugh, but Carol wasn't smiling.

"He told me about your little conversation." She went to her bed and jerked the comforter back. "It didn't sound to me like you were joking." She smoothed the tousled bedsheets. She punched both pillows. "Ronald's a dork, Joel, but he's not a liar. OK? I mean, why would he lie about something like that?"

"I never said he was a liar. Maybe he just misunderstood me."

"Well, I understand you." She resettled the comforter and sat down on the edge of the bed. Her right hand trembled on the hem of her jacket. "And, you know, he was going to give it to you. He was actually going to give you the money, the big idiot. I'm not letting him."

"But I don't want the money."

"You're not getting it."

"I don't want it. I was joking. Really."

"Right, Joel. You don't want the money. How am I supposed to believe that?"

I touched her elbow, but she closed her eyes and twisted away. She wouldn't look at me. "I just want to go. OK? I feel sick. I feel like I'm about to puke."

"You want to leave right now?" I asked.

She nodded violently. Small tears were starting at the corners of her eyes.

"You don't even want to stick around for dinner?"

Carol's Honda was blocked in, and it took 20 minutes to get people to move their cars. I waited in the garage, shivering. Each time the door opened a blast of sound and light would spill out into the cold, and my heart would squeeze. Finally the driveway was clear, and Carol came out of the house, trailed by goodbyes. "Merry Christmas, Jonah!" I heard someone shout. As we drove away I looked back through the rear window and saw Ronald, standing on the driveway in the glare of a powerful floodlight, wearing his woolly hat. Snow swirled down around him. He was just standing there, watching us.

•

When we were still half a mile from my apartment I said, "Drop me off here."

"For Christ's sake. I'll take you all the way home. I'm not a sadist."

"No. Leave me here. There's something I need to do."

Carol gave me a look, then pulled over onto the snowy shoulder. Neither of us had spoken a word during the ride home. She shifted the car into park and said, "I don't think we should see each other anymore." She pronounced the words carefully, like she was translating a foreign language.

"I realize that."

She seemed surprised. "You're OK with that?"

"I think I'll survive, if that's what you mean."

"Joel, I'm sorry about this. Really. I'm just ... sorry." She shook her head. "I shouldn't have brought you. I'm just such a moron sometimes."

"It's OK. You brought me because you wanted to piss off your brother. Or maybe you felt sorry for me. It's Christmas. You were doing your good deed, right?"

"Wait. Joel--"

"Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I went. I just wish I'd gotten that money from your brother. He was this close to giving it to me."

Carol stared at me.

"You know what I told him?"

"No. I don't."

"I talked Bible to him. I used that line about the poor in spirit, which is me, inheriting the earth. I told him I needed a little advance."

Carol shook her head. "You have problems, Joel. You have some serious problems."

"Well, I'll see you. Fuck you. Merry Christmas."

I climbed out of the car. The highway was empty, but Carol's Honda sat idling on the side of the road. I kicked her rear bumper. "Fucking go!" I shouted. Finally Carol dropped the car into gear. As she pulled away, I heard the soft click of the electric door locks.

The parking lot of the 7-Eleven was empty. It smelled like gasoline. Through the plateglass window I saw Rahman polishing the front counter with a rag. He scrubbed it methodically, then began buffing the glass cover of the hot dog rotisserie. I felt old, like I'd seen everything and would never again be surprised, and this scared me. I stood on the curb in the cold until my ears began to ache, then walked slowly across the parking lot.

I pulled open the Plexiglas front door, and a single bell jingled. Rahman looked up from the rotisserie. When he saw me he did the strangest thing: He smiled, like he was happy I'd come back.

My heart. For a moment, it ached with joy.

Andrew Porter, 25, a student at the Writer's Workshop of the University of Iowa, won second prize in the fiction contest. Third prizes went to Andrew Bujalski, 20, a senior film student at Harvard; Laura Durnell, 26, an MFA student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; and Bonnie Jo Campbell, 36, an MFA student at Western Michigan University. Read a profile of our College Fiction Contest Winner at www.playboy.com.